Insane Sanity
by Lialane Graest
Summary: Could it be that Insanity is the only thing that keeps Stein sane enough to continue living? Presumed character death. One sided MariexStein


Stein lay on the roof of his lab, his back of his head touching the outer wall. He could hear the pounding on the door from where he lay, but ignored it; Marie's voice just a distraction.

No amount of turning the screw would erase his memories.

Everything had flooded back. Everything he had done while sane, everything he had done while lost in the Madness.

He hated himself.

With the memories emotions had come. Like the memories he had suppressed the emotions had taken a toll on the man. His sanity had cost him years of life, and shortly, would end his life.

Marie could never understand.

So he hadn't bothered to explain it to her, simply stood and walked up the steps to the roof, calmly closing it and locking it behind himself. She had realized his intention too late, and was now desperately pounding at the door, screaming his name.

Occasionally she shouted that she loved him. That she couldn't live without him. As much as she may mean that then, Stein knew it was a lie.

Marie may love him, but she could, and would, continue on without him. She would live to old age unless an accident took her before then. A witch perhaps. Stein twisted the screw in his head, sighing as it brought a new memory flooding back.

_A young girl lay on the table in front of him, her chest split wide open. Her mother lay on the table behind him, her chest likewise split open. He held the daughter's heart in his hand, and with a maniacal grin he turned to the mother._

_She was still awake, somehow. The adrenaline that rushed through a woman's veins when they saw their child in danger, perhaps? _

_That didn't stop him though. A few quick cuts and he held the woman's heart in his hands, watching as it gave one last shuddering beat before lowering her daughter's heart into her chest. The woman's eyes rolled up in her head, and she passed out._

_He could still remember the sheer ecstasy he had felt when he realized the mother was alive after he sewed her up, her daughter's heart beating in her chest, and the apathy he felt when he realized that the daughter's body wasn't strong enough to support the mother's full grown heart._

_He had felt nothing when he fed the child's body to the furnace, or the mother's when she woke and took her own life._

Stein shook his head. "What am I proving here, by reliving all of the mistakes?" He sighed.

The door cracked as something hard slammed into it. Stein pulled his head up from the side of his lab and watched as Marie smashed the door down, her hand a hammer, a determined look on her face.

"Marie…" He said quietly, not moving from his perch, letting his head lay back down against the wall.

"Franken, what are you doing?" She said quietly, moving to sit beside him, her legs dangling over the edge as she looked down at him, worry painted on her features.

"Reliving my life." He answered simply.

"You don't do that until you die!" She said firmly, one hand reaching out to grab his shoulder.

"You know that I will die, Marie." He said, his hand cranking the screw.

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Another memory flooded back, cutting off anything she was saying in the here and now.

_This time Marie was asleep on a table in front of him, a bloody scalpel in his hand, a series of delicate incisions made all along her stomach, so small a single stitch would suffice to hold them closed, something she would most likely overlook._

_A chuckle escaped his throat as he admired his handiwork. He had destroyed Marie as surely as he had destroyed the others. She would never have a child. Even if she found someone to marry her, she would be barren. Hysterical giggles slid from his throat._

He blinked and realized that Marie was speaking to him. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered at this point was doing what he had come up here to do.

With one quick movement he had stood, and pulled Marie up and into his arms. He pressed his lips against hers, silencing her, and poured all of the emotion he had felt for her and blocked out for so long into it.

She was speechless as he pushed her away and with a single step plummeted off the side of the lab.

Her scream tore through the night, and she lunged after him. Stein's eyes grew wide as he saw her come over the side of the lab after him, her arms outstretched. He reached out, his fingers brushing hers briefly before the concrete slammed into him and he knew nothing.

* * *

**A/N: *content sigh* I don't own Soul Eater.**


End file.
